Destroyer
by Mikmo-Eonic
Summary: It's 2015, and the world is gearing up for WWIII. Fabricated beasts have been all but phased out of the world's militaries, and walkers are in fast decline. Can Deryn Sharp IV prevent a nuclear Armageddon?
1. Chapter I

**DISCLAIMER:  
**  
I do not own 'Leviathan', 'Behemoth', 'Goliath', or any part of the 'Leviathan series' in part or in whole. However, I _do _own Deryn Sharp IV (technically?) and most (if not all) of the characters in this story. I'll state at the beginning of a chapter if I _do not _own a particular character/idea in that chapter.  
**Rated T **for language and violence. Rating may change depending on how violent I decide to make this fic.

Basically, I got the idea for this fic whilst playing Call of Duty MW3 shortly after finishing Goliath. I thought, "Whoa. WWIII, Leviathan style...AWESOME!". But then I realized: 90 years after Leviathan, Clanker technology would have evolved far past Darwinist fabrications. You can make an airplane faster and more deadly - not so much with a giant flying whale. I figured that by the 21st century, the Darwinist militaries would have either had to abandon their fabricated creatures in the interest of national security, or merge them with Clanker technology. So I settled for the latter, because I just _love _fighting bears and kappa. I've included several of my own fabrications in this story as well. I was considering making this a 'Call of Duty'\'Leviathan' cross-over, because of the overall theme (a revolution in Russia leads to WWIII), but abandoned that because there are so many story elements that are different, and there aren't any CoD characters (intentionally) included in the story. I apologize if I accidentally include a Brit named 'first name Price'. It's a nice, common name, so don't call foul please.  
Keep in mind that this chapter merely serves as an introduction to this new 'modern version' of the Leviathan world, and the characters within it.

Now, thank you for reading the above paragraph, enjoy the story, and review please! My comrade Mikmo lives on them. You don't want to kill a young Lithuanian boy...do you?

* * *

Deryn Sharp the Fourth yawned as her instructor droned on about the 'obsolescence of two-legged war machines and air beasts on the modern battlefield'.

You see, following the Sharp family tradition, Deryn had joined the Royal Air Force. Ever since her great-great-Grandmother Deryn Sharp the First had illegally joined Her Majesty's Royal Air Navy during World War One, and eventually married the Austro-Hungarian prince Aleksander Ferdinand (though her grandmother still told stories about how her grandfather always argued that nobles didn't really have a last name), every Sharp girl had joined the RAF. Coincidentally, all Sharp children that came from the Sharp-Ferdinand line were female, for the last 100 years. That chain had been broken when Deryn Sharp IV's younger brother Conner Sharp had been born, though.

Now, in 2013, the enlistment age for the RAF had been lowered to 16. Deryn's father had refused to allow her to enlist in 2015, though she was the required 16 years of age, and surpassed the physical requirements to join even more so than several of the boys she saw around her. In response, her mother (Deryn Sharp the Third) had promptly packed a bag for her daughter and had bought several fake papers for her. She was now 'Robin MacAlister' from Aberdeen, Scotland. After a quick forging of her father's signature, the Sharp family tradition had been saved!

Unfortunately, enlistees under the age of 18 had to take mandatory schooling. One of the classes she was required to take 'Military History', in addition to 'Algebra', 'Physical Science', and other _unbearably boring _subjects. It was mostly talking about the decline of fabricated animals and walkers over the course of the 20th century. By the end of WWII, 40% of the world's Darwinist militaries had adopted tracked vehicles such as tanks as their main offensive weapon, and by 1960, 80% of the world's militaries were primarily 'mechanical'. Meanwhile, the Clankers lasted a bit longer. The last known use of a 'walker' in combat was in the 1990s, during the Gulf War (by the Iraqi Republican Guard), and the last known landship in the world had been scrapped in 2002, as they simply weren't practical anymore.  
"Now." the teacher finished, turning from the smart-board to face his class. "Is everyone ready for their final?"  
A groan escaped Deryn's lips.

* * *

Junior Sergeant (Corporal) Mikhail Artemida Sukhodolskaia sighed as he looked out at the Mongolian steppes from the guard tower of Mongoliya Kremlin, which stood on the northeast border of Mongolia and Russia. He stared through the scope of his Dragunov sniper rifle, scanning the border.  
"Why do we even have to do this?" Mikhail's spotter, Private Andrik Nikolaev moaned in Russian, "It's not like we're expecting an attack from the Mongolians!"  
"I don't know, comrade..." Mikhail answered, "We just need to be vigilant..."  
"Why? Are the Chinese going to tear through Mongolia and attack us?"  
"Maybe. If we play our cards right."  
"What?"  
"Nothing, comrade..."  
Mikhail was a soft-spoken boy most of the time, at the age of 16. He had joined the Russian Airborne Troops after his father, a talented Spetsnaz, had died fighting Chechen rebels. His mother was moderately ill most of the time, and his little sister Lili was prone to seizures, which led to expensive hospital bills. He sighed once more, glancing over his shoulder at his clueless friend. "Soon..." he said quietly. "Mother Russia shall rise again."


	2. Chapter II

**DISCLAIMER:**

I do not own 'Leviathan', 'Behemoth', 'Goliath', or any part of the 'Leviathan series' in part or in whole. However, I _do _own Deryn Sharp IV (technically?) and most (if not all) of the characters in this story. I don't own the idea of airbeasts or walkers, etc.  
**Rated T **for language and violence. Rating may change depending on how violent I decide to make this fic.

School has prevented me from typing much. I apologize to anyone who actually likes to read my cruddy writing.  
I also admit to drawing a lot from the original Leviathan crash for this chapter. Call it fate...or destiny? Or just a lack of creativity that has shamed me...  
WARNING: Many somewhat-confusing POV-changes in this chapter.  
I also admit that I forgot how to spell 'colors' for several minutes whilst typing this. ONE MORE THING: when imagining any of the Russians speaking, imagine them speaking all of their 'l's like the end of 'poll', and rolling their 'r's.

* * *

[_A few months later..._]

Deryn fiddled with the collar of her new uniform as she walked across the tarmac at a London RAF base. She and several other privates were being led to the _Leviathan _airbeast, where they would be spending the next few weeks as they flew across Eurasia for an exposition of some sort in Japan. Deryn smiled, excited. It was hard to believe that this was the very same airbeast that her great-great-grandmother had flown on almost 100 years prior. She marveled at the giant creature, and was almost surprised at how haunting it's large, expressionless eyes seemed, as if it were trying to tell people all that it had seen in the more than a century it had lived. It had seen massive amounts of death, and probably suffered even more pain.  
"I wonder if it knows what 'death' is...?" she muttered aloud.  
"What's that, MacAlistar?" Private Pierce beside her asked.  
"Oh, nothing." she replied.  
She had passed her exams with flying colors, and the subsequent training had prepared her and her fellow privates for aerial reconnaissance missions on airships and airbeasts. They were told that if they could handle that, they would be given the choice to move on to other fields of the RAF.  
She marveled and listened intently as a Colonel explained various aspects of the airbeast that hadn't been covered in their later, she was situated in her quarters with one Lieutenant Nora Wilhelm, and the beast was off.

* * *

[_Several weeks later._]

Junior Sergeant Sukhodolskaia was once again observing the Mongolian border, bored as ever. He was going it alone tonight, as Andirk had managed to fake a horrible cough that rendered him unable to snipe effectively, fooling the commanding officer of the fort. He sighed, sitting down and switching his scope's night vision on. There was apparently a British airship passing the border soon enough, on it's way to Japan. He scowled.  
"Foreigners..." he said to himself, "They have no right to fly over our fields..."  
It was true, however, that this airship, the _Leviathan _had been cleared by the Russian, Mongolian, and Chinese governments to fly over their land in order to reach Japan. Besides, the ship was mostly unarmed.

There was a commotion below as the airship was picked up on radar, and quickly dismissed by the commanders. Mikhail adjusted his rifle and began scanning the skies, looking for the craft. That was when a fairly large shadow passed over head.  
"Christ!" someone shouted from below, "It's going right over us! Damn Brits!"  
Mikhail aimed his rifle at massive thing, and shuddered as he realized it was an air_beast_. A flying whale that 'breathed' hydrogen.  
"And the world calls us obsolete..." he muttered, scanning the beast.  
He blinked twice.  
Someone was on the netting that spanned the creature, hanging from a line and staring back at him.  
"Stupid British..."

* * *

Deryn laughed in delight as the wind blew past her entire body, thinking that this must have been what her great-great-grandmother felt all the time while she served on the _Leviathan_. With a pair of binoculars in hand and her harness being safely clipped to the beast, she looked down upon the small Russian fort that the ship was passing straight over.  
Scanning it, she saw a lone sniper in a tower. A boy, maybe her age, looking back at her through the scope of a rifle.  
The Russian pulled his eye from the scope and blinked twice, perhaps confused, and merely looked up at Deryn with a dead look in his eyes. Deryn was slightly unnerved by this, but now though she understood what a sniper in the Paratroopers had said once. Watching someone through the scope of a sniper rifle was a very personal experience. If you watched them long enough, you could learn many things about them. She was guessing, based on his appearance, that he was a very busy person - his light blonde (almost white) hair was relatively long for a soldier, and quite messy. Deryn supposed he had seen a lot of disturbing things, to have that look in his eye.  
As the Russian boy adjusted his furry hat, it felt like he was glaring into her very soul.  
"Alistar...think...back...aft!" she heard over the wind from the radio clipped to her harness. Probably a superior telling her to come back inside the gondola. She sighed and enjoyed the view just a little while longer.  
"What..." she said to herself, "What's that noise?"

* * *

Mikhail merely stared at the British airman as the beast passed overhead, and decided that all Western Europeans were inherently stupid. The boy had been trained to evaluate people through the scope of a rifle. Right now, he was assuming that this boy on the airship was a ditzy idiot; carefree and sloppy. He shook his head, but his attention snapped back to the _Leviathan _when he heard a loud whistling noise.  
"No..." he said quietly, "No..NO..."  
He leaned over the railing of the guard tower, screaming at the top of his lungs at the same time as three other men, "Pozhar raketnyii!"

* * *

Deryn screamed slightly as something went whizzing past her, leaving a trail of white smoke behind it. All air within a hundred meters had to be scorching hot. She watched it as it turned upward, flying high into the air, then stopped, soaring on it's momentum for several hundred feet, before turning upside down again and speeding towards the Earth at a speed she didn't think should be possible for such a bulky looking object. When the thing was less than a hundred feet from the ground, it exploded.

Sort of.  
Dividing up into a hundred smaller missiles and careening towards the ground, they exploded, making all of the land below and behind the _Leviathan _became engulfed by a firestorm. Anything down there was sure to be completely destroyed.

Deryn, thoroughly spooked, began making her way back to the_ Leviathan's_ gondola, trying to figure out just what the hell was happening.

* * *

Mikhail dived back into the stone tower as hundreds of incendiary bomblets bombarded the area. He stumbled down the ladder into the tower just as a hot slab of napalm splattered his and Adrik's platform.  
"Crap!" he shouted as flames licked the back of his coat.  
Tumbling to the floor and rolling around, he made sure his rifle had remained loaded, and huddled against the corner of the guard tower's interior, cringing as he felt the stone heating up from the outside.

All this while, he heard through his earpiece. Cowards screaming for their mothers, and patriots screaming at the cowards to get in their vehicles. At this moment they were unsure who had fired the missile - the hardware was undoubtedly Chinese, but for all the commanders of the fort knew, it could be a plot to put the Russians and Chinese to war.

The explosions had stopped, and Mikhail peaked out the doorway of the tower. In the courtyard, most everything was on fire - the missile had exploded in just the right place. Anything not wooden or otherwise flammable was covered in still-burning napalm. Creeping his way out into the courtyard, he overheard orders for five able-bodied men at the motor pool. He quickly made his way there.  
_BRWHOOOOSH!  
_Mikhail twirled around just in time to see several surface-to-air missiles fire from the top of a tower, heading straight for the giant airbeast.

* * *

Deryn flinched as several missiles blew past the _Leviathan_, and exploding in midair several second later. Several Chinese J-22s had been destroyed. If the Leviathan was caught in the crossfire...  
She shuddered.  
Just as she started moving again, the Leviathan began the loose altitude.

* * *

Mikhail stumbled into the commander's seat of a T-99 Armata, and began trying to get himself situated. The fourth-generation tank had been introduced just this year, and no one had much training with it. However, the base commander had ordered Mikhail into the commander's seat. When Mikhail had argued, the Lieutenant merely said, "You're a sniper - you wear shades, use a big gun, and have a bad attitude. You're a tank commander on foot."

Now, Mikhail was in command of two other young men with little to no idea what they were doing.  
He looked through the commander's sights and switched to thermal. Two soldiers on snowmobiles zoomed ahead as he flipped on the thermal mode. In the distance, a massive red-orange fireball was visible.  
"Tupoĭ Angliĭskiĭ!" he snapped. "Let's check it out."

* * *

Deryn screamed as the airship went down, slowly rotating to the left as it fell. It wasn't long before the poor thing made contact with the ground below.  
She lost her grip on the ratlines and tumbled, hitting the snow below. It wasn't soft though - it had a layer of hard ice over it. She lost consciousness.

She awoke shortly thereafter. Or maybe a while after? Her vision was fuzzy, and she was extremely cold. Raising her head slowly and carefully, Deryn looked around. To her right, the Leviathan lay on it's side, flaming, and deflating like a big party balloon. To her right, a blizzard raged. Over the howl of the wind, she heard the sound of an engine.  
She attempted to sit up, but yelped in pain as her right arm gave out on her.

Forcing herself to not black out again, Deryn attempted to stand, to no avail. The ice was slippery as hell, and her left leg wouldn't move. Engine sounds grew louder, before coming to a stop nearby. Men shouting over the wind in a foreign language. Russian?  
"_Heeelllp...!_" she groaned, the cold air stinging her throat. "_Pleeaaase!_"  
Footsteps.  
People in uniform looming over her, speaking in Russian. Her vision began growing dimmer again as the chatted amongst themselves.  
"_Help me, you bloody gits...!_" she croaked.  
One of them knelt down, and lowered his balaclava from his mouth, raising his goggles onto helmet as well. Those gray-blue eyes from before pierced into her soul.  
"Vwell. Vwhat do vwe have here? A little lost kitten, straight form Great Britain?"  
Looking up at his comrades, the Russian spoke to them in a serious tone, then looked back down at Deryn.  
"Do not vworry, friend. You shall be just fine."


	3. Chapter III

**DISCLAIMER:**

I do not own 'Leviathan', 'Behemoth', 'Goliath', or any part of the 'Leviathan series' in part or in whole. However, I _do _own Deryn Sharp IV (technically?) and most (if not all) of the characters in this story. I don't own the idea of airbeasts or walkers, etc.  
**Rated T **for language and violence. Rating may change depending on how violent I decide to make this fic.

From now on, I'll alternate POVs between chapters, because I didn't like what I did last chapter. Forgive my accent fails! Read and review, or Mikmo will track you down and burn down half of your hometown! And steal all of your cheese. Because European Wisconsinites are just that boss.

* * *

Deryn slowly faded back to reality, waking up, and aching all over her body. There was muffled shouting and screaming all around, along with the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Sitting up carefully, sharp pain flashed up her arm. She yelped a bit, and lay down again, looking around.  
"_Alright..._" she thought, "_Where in the bloody hell am I?_"  
She was laying on a cold metal table, in a concrete room of sorts. Every now and then, the cieling would shake, sending little flakes of old paint fluttering down around her. She directed her gaze towards the nearest source of noise. A soldier stood in front of a small window, his sniper rifle aiming for enemies otherwise unseen. He hadn't heard her over the sounds of war.  
Suddenly, from the other side of the room, a crashing sound. Her head snapped in that direciton as another soldier rushed through, only in a different uniform, shouting in a different language.  
The soldier in the window twirled around, revealing a Russian flag on his shoulder, and qucikdrew a handgun, delivering several shots to the other soldier's, who had a Chinese flag on his shoulder, face.  
The Russian abandoned his rifle for now, approaching the metal door, handgun ready.  
"Muscovy!" he shouted out the door, awaiting a reply. "Muscovy!"  
"Malchiki!" several other voices called out.  
He breathed a sigh of relief, and shut the door again, walking to his post again. Almost as an afterthought, he looked over his shoulder at Deryn.  
"_Those bloody eyes..._" Deryn thought.  
The boy with the grey-blue eyes. Seeing that Deryn was awake, he walked over to her, and spoke in heavily accented English.  
"How do you feel, Englishman?" he asked.  
She looked at him for a second before answering. "Oh, you know," she said, her voice like sandpaper. "Besides breaking some limbs and having a frostbit arse, I'm great!"  
He smiled quarkely for a moment, before scowling again. "You're vwone lucky son of a dog, comrade." he said, "Zhe only survivor vwe found."  
Deryn's eyes bulged out for a moment. "That's a sick joke, right?" she exclaimed, struggling to sit up and maybe slap him.  
"Nyet. Not at all..." the boy replied, kneeling down and grabbing a bottle of water from under the table. "Here, drink somezing."  
He poured some water into a paper cup, and helped Deryn sit up, holding it out for her. She drank greedily, and cleared her throat afterwards.  
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M THE ONLY SURVIVOR!" she screamed in his face.  
His eyes grew soft, and he looked out the window. "You are zhe only one still living. Vwe found maybe eight othzhers. Zhe all died within a day of rescue."  
Deryn tried to process what she had just heard. Everyone on the Leviathan, dead. The Leviathan, dead. A hundred plus year legacy, ended by one missile. She felt emotion welling up inside of her, but forced herself to remain composed. She wouldn't get worked up in front of this stranger.  
"Do not blame me, anglichanin. Blame zhe Chinese."  
"The...the Chinese?"  
"Da. Zhey began zheir invasion just days ago. Vwe've been desperately fighting zhem back. Zhey are strong, but vwe refuse to allow our Motherland to fall."

"This was just supposed to be a bloody exposition..." Deryn said quietly. "Why did they shoot down the Leviathan?"  
"Zhey didn't. The beast was merely caught in the crossfire of a dogfight."  
"So...it was an accident..."  
"Yes."  
"It didn't even go down in battle..."  
She clenched her jaw, and took a deep breath, looking down.  
The boy looked at her solemnly for a moment before speaking. "Hey, cheer up, comrade. You vwant to get out of here, right? Get back home to your girlfriend, da?"  
"What?" she asked, "Girlfriend?"  
"Oh, I see. You don't have one. I suppose there are plenty of rabbits in the Taiga, though. Just keep looking, da?"  
"But I'm-"  
"No time for chatting. Vwe need to evacuate you, or vwe'll have an even bigger international incident on our hands."

Without saying anything, the boy hefted Deryn over his shoulder and walked out the door.  
"You broke your right leg, and your left ankle vwas shattered or somezing." he explained as he carried her down a hallway.  
"Hey...what's your name, again?" Deryn asked.  
"Junior Sergeant Mikhail Artemida Sukhodolskaia." he said.  
"What the hell? I can't even pronounce that!"  
"Michael Artemis Sukho." he said, more slowly. "You?"  
"Private Robin MacAllister." she replied.  
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. MacAllister."  
"Mister? I'm a-"  
Deryn was cut off by a massive explosion not too far off. Several Russian soldiers scurried through the hallway, setting up defensive positions in other rooms.  
Mikhail set Deryns down on a small bench in another room, and put his hand over an earpiece that Deryn hadn't noticed. He spoke in Russian for a moment, conversing with someone. Ending the conversation, he picked Deryn up again.  
"Do not vworry, Robin. You vwill be okay. Zhere is a helicopter coming soon."  
"Why is it so bloody important that I get evacuated?"  
"Vwern't you listening earlier? If you die here today, zhe Russian Federation vwill be accused of shooting down zhe Leviathan. Vwe need to give zhe Chinese what's coming to zhem."  
"Oh."  
Mikhail carried her outside of the building, which turned out to be the very fort that the Leviathan had flown over not so long ago. No more than half a mile away, a massive battle raged as the Russians tried to prevent the Chinese from advancing. A faint _whupwhupwhup _of helicopter blades grew closer, and a Russian transport helicopter hovered a few feet off the ground, twenty feet away. Deryn and Mikhail's hair was blown back as Mikhail carried her to the chopper, and placed her inside. "Good luck my friend." he shouted over the roar of the chopper's blades, "I promise, each death I cause in this battle shall be in the name of the Leviathan, and your fallen comrades."  
There was a sound similar to a jet screaming towards them. Then the world erupted in fire once more.

* * *

[A/N: Okay...screw the accents!]

Deryn awoke once more, this time in pitch black darkness. She couldn't move...  
"Hello?" she asked, a little freaked out. Was she dead? "Mikhail...? Anyone?"  
A single light bulb flickered to life above her head, and a woman laughed.  
"This was just supposed to be an exposition..." Deryn said quietly.  
"Aw...is the little Scotsgirl going to cry?" a woman's voice said as a woman in a Chinese military uniform emerged from the shadows.  
"W-what's going on?" Deryn demanded, trying to muster some courage. "Tell me you bloody git!"  
"I suppose there's no harm in telling you, since we're going to kill you soon anyway."  
"Kill me...?"  
"You're in a compound in southern Mongolia. You're the only person in Eurasia that can testify that the People's Republic started this war."  
Deryn fought to hold back tears. Why was this happening to her? The woman smiled sadistically. "The only reason you're still alive is because someone very high up thinks that we can get some useful information about the United Kingdom's military from you."  
"You can't do this! Some SAS guys'll come and save me! Or something...I..."  
The woman's smiled grew wider at Deryn's despair, then faltered for a moment as the ceiling shook.  
"No...they couldn't have possibly..."

The wall behind the woman exploded. Or rather, collapsed, letting light flood into the room. A Russian tank busted through it, and lowered it's main gun so it was level with the woman.  
"Impossible!" she exclaimed, "They couldn't have advanced so quickly...!"  
Someone emerged from the tank's top hatch, and Deryn was surprised to realize that it was Mikhail, his jacket billowing behind him for some reason, and his expression one of extreme rage.  
"Surrender!" he shouted, "In the name of Mother Russia!"  
The woman turned and ran.  
"Gutsy dog..." Mikhail growled as the tank's coaxial machine gun fired and the woman fell to the ground in a bloody mess.  
He jumped down from the tank and approached Deryn, crouching down and untying her from the chair.  
"Comrade MacAllister." he said. "I'm pleased to inform you that at least twenty-three men and four tanks have fallen in the name of the Leviathan."  
"That...that's...what?"  
"No time for talk, da? I've been ordered to escort you-"  
He stopped speaking for a moment and put a hand to his ear, where he was receiving orders via an earpiece.  
"Alright, change of plans, da? I take you to nearest airport where you will be escorted back to the Kingdom United."  
"You mean the United Kingdom?"  
"Do not make fun of my speech, Englishman!" he commanded, dragging Deryn into the tank, where two other boys sat, looking confused.  
Mikhail gave some orders in Russian as he placed Deryn on the floor next to what she assumed was the commander's seat.  
The tank started moving.

* * *

A few hours of being stuck in a heavy metal box on treads with a bunch of smelly, noisy Russian later, Deryn was helped out of the tank and towards the tarmac of the airport. She gasped at what she saw. It was an airbeast...but...not!

A giant creature, bigger than any aircraft she'd ever seen, floated a few feet above the tarmac - why, it had to be 800 feet long! It's front was home to two gigantic eyes that looked quite hateful, and a small (in comparison to the rest of the beast) snout. The creature had six massive wings affixed to it (three on each side), each wing with massive jet engines and flares attached. The creature had several other mechanical attachments, such as the gondola, several rocket/missile silos, and countless machine guns and anti-aircraft batteries, all which seemed to be growing OUT of or merged INTO the beast in some way, shape, or form. The non-mechanical parts of the creature were covered in a heavy, dark brown, fur-looking substance.  
"Say 'Privyet', Comrade." Mikhail said to Deryn. "To the Ursa-Koloss Sibiri. The Bear-Colossus of Siberia."  
"The beastie is bloody HUGE!" she exclaimed, still gaping at the creature as Mikhail helped her along.  
"Heh. The Ursa-Koloss has been a great help to me and my comrades in the field. Normally, we would be using her to crush the Chinese vital regions, but she must be used to get you back to Britain."  
"Wait, I'm flying on that thing? What about the Leviathan? The remains of her crew?"  
"Don't worry - we'll get it all back to London somehow, da?"

Deryn wasn't so sure. Mikhail helped her up the gangplank, and was about to leave back to his tank when someone started screaming in Russian and the beastie began ascending.  
"Bloody hell!" Deryn shouted as the beast rocked slightly, almost throwing the two out of the gondola. Mikhail pulled the door shut and cringed as the sounds of a dogfight erupted overhead.  
Several Russians ran past, and one in an extravagant uniform stopped, looking at the two and chattering to Mikhail in Russian. They conversed for a moment, before the man tipped his hat and ran off.  
"Podozhdite!" Mikhail shouted after him, sounding defeated. He turned to Deryn. "That was Captain Braginski..." he explained. "He verified that you are the important package to be transporting to England, and then said that he would jot me down as an extra passenger. I told him I shoulder be on the ground, but..."  
The beastie rocked again, and Mikhail shrugged. "Come on, Robin. We best see what we can do to help. After all, how different can a Russian airbeast be from a British one?"


End file.
